In a victory for common sense, the trading behavior of company executives, directors, and large shareholders in the stocks of firms they're registered "insiders" at have been proven profitable to monitor by both academic studies and (more importantly) the experience of your fellow professional investors.

Below are lists of thetop 10 mainly open-market insider purchases and salesfiled at the Securities and Exchange CommissionWednesday, January 9, 2013as ranked by dollar value.

Please note, however, thatthese are factual lists, not buy and sell recommendations. Dollar value is only one metric to assess the importance of an insider transaction, and, frankly, often not even the most important metric that determines if an insider transaction is significant.

AtInsiderInsights.com, we find new investment ideas just about every day using these andmore intricate insider screensto determine where we should focus our subsequent fundamental and technical analysis. And while stocks don't (or shouldn't) move up or down based on insider activity alone, insiders tend to be good indicators of when real stock-moving events like earnings surprises, corporate actions, and new products may be in the offing.

So use these regular blog posts as the initial research tools they are meant to be, and click the links in the tables to analyze a company's or insider's full insider history. Also feel free toemail uswith any questions on our proprietary insider data, and how it is best analyzed.